In the eastern hemisphere, the litchi, the mangosteen, and the mango enjoy the highest reputation.
The Litchi (Nephelium Litchi), a small insignificant tree, with lanceolate leaves, and small greenish-white flowers, is a native of China and Cochin-China, but its cultivation has spread over the East and the West Indies. The plum-like scarlet fruit is generally eaten by the Chinese to their tea, but it is also dried in ovens and exported. In order to obtain the fruit in perfection, for the use of the Imperial Court, the trees, as soon as they blossom, are conveyed from Canton to Pekin on rafts, at a very great trouble and expense, so that the plums may just be ripe on their arrival in the northern capital.
The beautiful Mangosteen (Garcinia Mangostana), a native of the Moluccas, and thence transplanted to Java, Siam, the Philippines, and Ceylon, resembles at a distance the citron-tree, and bears large flowers like roses. The dark brown capsular fruit, about the size of a small apple, is described as of unequalled flavour—juicy and aromatic, like a mixture of strawberries, raspberries, grapes, and oranges. It is said that the patient who has lost an appetite for everything else still relishes the mangosteen, and that the case is perfectly hopeless when he refuses even this.
The stately Mango (Mangifera indica) bears beautiful girandoles of flowers, followed by large plum-like fruits, of which, however, but four or five ripen on each branch. More than forty varieties are grown at Kew, the finest of which are reserved for the Queen’s table. From Ceylon, its original seat, the mango has been transplanted far and wide over the torrid zone.
MANGOSTEEN.
THE SUGAR CANE.